If not, please let us know how we can do better (please try and propose any bigger ideas in such a way that they are fundable and scalable).

If so, please let others know about ocPortal whenever you see the opportunity.

If my reply is too Vulcan or expressed too much in business-strategy terms, and not particularly personal, I apologise. As a company & project maintainer, time is very limited to me, so usually when I write a reply I try and make it generic advice to all readers. I'm also naturally a joined-up thinker, so I always express my thoughts in combined business and technical terms. I recognise not everyone likes that, don't let my Vulcan-thinking stop you enjoying ocPortal on fun personal projects.

If my response can inspire a community tutorial, that's a great way of giving back to the project as a user.

I was interested by this concept from the beginning and I'm delighted that it has received more reflection and attention. I am a firm promoter of the idea of themeingocPortal and believe that it is one of the best ways to spread its influence. The ability to keep a theme in line with the software upgrades can go a long way to encourage people to apply changes to the original design. I can appreciate the challenges involved in making this a reality and can only applaud your willingness to achieve this goal, Chris.

People sometimes tend to go overboard while themeing their sites and forget that technology moves forward at a rapid pace nowadays. ocPortal has never lagged behind in that regard by promoting a technology engaged product. So I still maintain that it is unfair to expect ocPortal to guarantee that designers' whimsical creations should always be fully ported automatically. Common sense should dictate how far to go with modifications to the original design in order to keep it in a smooth transition curb.

In any case, it is very motivating to know that steps could be taken to ensure some auto-transition between technologies.

This is to be followed with great interest, and I hope to have a chance in participating in some testing challenges along the way. :)

Jean said

I was interested by this concept from the beginning and I'm delighted that it has received more reflection and attention. I am a firm promoter of the idea of themeing ocPortal and believe that it is one of the best ways to spread its influence. The ability to keep a theme in line with the software upgrades can go a long way to encourage people to apply changes to the original design. I can appreciate the challenges involved in making this a reality and can only applaud your willingness to achieve this goal, Chris.

People sometimes tend to go overboard while themeing their sites and forget that technology moves forward at a rapid pace nowadays. ocPortal has never lagged behind in that regard by promoting a technology engaged product. So I still maintain that it is unfair to expect ocPortal to guarantee that designers' whimsical creations should always be fully ported automatically. Common sense should dictate how far to go with modifications to the original design in order to keep it in a smooth transition curb.

In any case, it is very motivating to know that steps could be taken to ensure some auto-transition between technologies.

This is to be followed with great interest, and I hope to have a chance in participating in some testing challenges along the way. :)

Jean

Definitely there has to be some balance between functionality and design. I love seeing some over the top website designs as much as most people but i bet most of them are a nightmare to upgrade.